Early to bed, early to rise: that’s bad!

William Atkins
Thursday, 06 September 2007 21:39

Science - Health

According to a Japanese research study, people who regularly awaken before 5 a.m. had an increase in the chance of developing serious medical conditions such as heart attack, high blood pressure/hypertension, and stroke.        

Japanese physician Mayuko Kadono, the lead researcher in the study, used 3,017 healthy adults between the ages of 23 and 90 years to study the relationship between time of getting up in the morning and the frequency of developing negative health problems. Various researchers from universities and hospitals in Kyoto, a city in western Japan, helped Kadono complete the study.

Kadono found that his medical subjects had about 1.7 times greater risk of having high blood pressure/hypertension and about a two times increase in the chance of developing hardening of the arteries when they regularly woke before 5:00 in the morning.

Dr. Kadono is a physician at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine. He presented the results of his study at the Fifth Congress of the World Federation of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine Societies (“WorldSleep07”), which was held between September 2 and 6, 2007. It was held in Cairns, Australia, which is in the northern corner of Queensland.

Kadono also found a relationship between vascular (of the blood vessels) disease and people who woke up before 5 a.m. and who also exercised strenuously in the mornings.

Dr. Kadono now wants to find out the reasons for these relationships. Kadono says, "The results are contrary to the commonly held belief that early birds are in better health. We need to find what the causes of this are, and whether exercising after waking early is beneficial."